This invention relates to the field of tracing of seismic sections. In particular, the invention relates to tracing seismic sections to convert to digital format.
Seismic data have been collected for several decades and part of the older two-dimensional data is only available in the paper format of seismic sections. Conservative estimates indicate there are several millions of paper seismic sections owned by oil companies. Its value in terms of re-surveying is huge and sometimes immeasurable, especially when surveys are no longer possible in certain areas.
With the introduction of modern seismic workstations and user-friendly interpretation software, most of those paper seismic sections have become useless, unless they can be converted into digital format (i.e., into standard SEG-Y format). Using current technology, the conversion process is slow, due to the large amount of manual interventions, and involves relatively high costs and long throughput times. The slow process and the high costs discourage many oil companies from converting the legacy paper seismic sections into SEG-Y. The conversion is currently done on a project-by-project basis, driven by opportunity or to fulfil legal obligations.